


Don’t You Dare Pity Me!

by Nina931



Series: Theater of Despair [4]
Category: Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Future Foundation (Dangan Ronpa), Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Togami Levels of Rudeness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-12 06:08:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19126156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nina931/pseuds/Nina931
Summary: Byakuya Togami had grown up in a world of unseen and unspoken violence





	Don’t You Dare Pity Me!

**Author's Note:**

> Written for, you guessed it, the Don't you Dare Pity Me prompt for the Bad Things Happen Bingo.

Byakuya prides himself on his composure, the stoicism and aloofness expected of him as a Togami. 

Even during their ill-fated killing game he had managed to keep a hold of himself. He had been a beacon of calm within their group while the rest of his classmates panicked and ran about like headless chickens. So afraid of death and murder.

He had, of course, been prepared for such situations. The world of a Togami had been a cutthroat one, full of vicious competition not only between rival corporations but within the family itself. 

Byakuya Togami had grown up in a world of unseen and unspoken violence. Countless times he had been on the receiving end of an attempted assassination, and had of course been instructed on the ins and outs of that particular underworld trade himself. He was prepared and confident for the eventuality of having to kill to survive. It was to be expected of a Togami. 

(Regardless of _certain_ individuals and _certain_ circumstances, he still considers himself willing and able to commit that final act of violence. The world is an even more dangerous place now than when he was a foolish teenager; he will not allow himself to be beaten in this dog eats dog world.)

(Although, and If only for his own continued safety and goal of rebuilding his corporation, there may be the existence of a few annoyances he would willingly stick his neck out for...) 

He survived, and continues to survive. 

Very little, he had thought, could rattle the great Byakuya Togami’s composure now. Despite his very brief moments of weakness (the ones that occasionally peered through his rotting and decayed memory of Hope’s Peak to haunt him) he thought himself a more hardened individual in the hands of the future foundation. 

How unexpectedly and disgustingly wrong he had been. 

Within the fortressed walls of the future foundations medical centre, Byakuya feels the cold cement of the empty hallway bleeding up through his once finely pressed pants. He is not capable of movement, even as he knows- _fears_ -the risk of someone finding him there, playing witness to him acting as weak and stupid as a Togami is, by definition, not.  
He does not move. He stays sitting there, curled up pathetically into his side like a child might. 

He is breathing too fast, body convulsing shamelessly as he claws at the wall with one hand as he attempts to regain some semblance of control. But that would require him to be able to stop thinking, stop _seeing_ , stop feeling in every atom of his being the flood of images he cannot fight against as they thunder relentlessly against his psyche. 

It is gunfire, a backdrop of his thoughts brought to horrifying life as the surprise flash of ignition surrounds them. It is the way Aoi’s voice, echoing jovially in the dark moments before turning suddenly silent. The _intimate_ smell of blood, a familiar friend, crowding his senses, hands shoving him, bringing him down hard onto harsh asphalt and glass. 

He feels the sting of pain in his palms and the silence of the hall fills with mechanical laughter. Just like _Hers_. 

He presses himself as tightly as possible to the wall. He bows his head into his knees, shamefully hiding his lack of control over his emotions from – from an empty hallway, from the ghosts of his disappointed ancestors, from the monster wearing a teenage girl’s skin. From himself.

He’s fine. Not even really injured, only the grazing on his hands to show from the mess of that last mission. Everyone else escaped with similar damage, even Aoi who, for a moment he had feared—no, he didn’t _fear_ , was concerned in a practical manner over their most physically capable team member—had been injured far worse. So he had no reason, none at all, to be collapsing and hyperventilating in public hallways.

He struggles to remove his glasses, his hands shaking and his head unwilling to remove itself from between his knees. He cannot have them breaking, the way a fine lady may break a glass, when she is consumed with hysterics. As he himself is. The shuddering, tight vice of wayward emotion is swallowing Byakuya whole. 

There can be no evidence of his weakness. 

He has not yet allowed his dignity to betray him enough to let tears to flow but they threaten, distorting the world even further as his glasses remain clenched in his fist. The first tear he lets spill will be the first drop towards the death of the Togami. 

He doesn’t notice until it is too late, until a familiar panic stricken voice pierces the relative quiet of his hiding place. 

“B-Byakuya!”

Makoto approaches him at nearly a run from the end of the hallway, worry and concern radiating from every line of his body. A mixture of fear, anger, and shame causes Byakuya’s next panicked action. Something he had always thought himself so above. 

“GO AWAY! Don’t you _dare_ get any c-closer-” 

His voice hitches high and unsteady, breaking in the middle and cutting his warning off. Makoto, to his limited credit, does stop but he doesn’t leave. He looks _down at him_ , at the great Byakuya Togami, heir of the Togami conglomerate, with _concern_ and _worry_ and _**pity**_. 

Byakuya is still shaking, his eyes are still on the cusp of watering, but the shame and anger that bled into him, ripping him apart…they now have a new target. Makoto needs to not be looking at him like _that_. In fact he needs to not be here at all, the fatal witness to Byakuya Togami’s fall from grace.

 _Again._

Those big hazel eyes are staring straight through him and he is strung tight with tension. Makoto’s voice is low and carrying when he finally speaks.

“Byakuya…are you injured? I heard the doctors say you were fine but…Is there something wrong?”

Byakuya manages to twist his face into a sneer, “Oh? You think you have any right to question me? Know your place commoner…I’m perfectly fine and it is None Of Your Business.”  
He enunciates those last words carefully and angrily, putting as much vitriol into them as he can muster. 

Makoto flinches back, presumably at his tone, potentially at his most-likely deranged expression. Despite that, Makoto’s expression only becomes more intense in its concern and he shuffles forward along the floor. 

“I’m your friend Byakuya…Of course I’d think it’s alright for me to ask if you’re okay. Which I still don’t think you are, by the way. You know it’s really not good to hide an injury-”

“I do not need your help or your concern and you need to _stop looking at me like that!_ ”

“Wha- What? Byakuya—“

“ _Shut up! Don’t touch me!_ ”

The sound of flesh hitting flesh resounds through the corridor, as loud as thunder. A ragged gasp follows shortly after. Byakuya cannot tell whether it is him or Makoto that it comes from. Time seems frozen to him and the ringing in his ears is so loud. 

Makoto shrinks back, cheek already turning into the faint red outline of a hand. 

Byakuya didn’t mean to hit him, hadn’t meant to rebuff him in so physical—so crude— a way. He had panicked. Makoto had come too close, whether to calm him or check him for an injury he didn’t know, but it had been too close to touching, to dispensing his pity and sullying a Togami with soft, condescending care. 

There is a moment of tense unhappy silence. 

“I’m sorry”

What. 

“For getting in your space when you didn’t want me to…and I guess for just not leaving you alone...I kinda obviously didn’t help huh?” Makoto laughs that little self-deprecating laugh of his, soft and self-conscious. 

Byakuya doesn’t understand why _Makoto’s_ the one apologising. Except he does, and it is truly an un-intelligent and un-Togami-like thing to be surprised. Of course Makoto would apologise. It was his fault for not respecting Byakuya’s warnings and personal space. It is a commoners place to take the blame for such situations. 

Even if he had also been rightfully concerned over his…friend’s… well-being, and had done what was in Makoto’s nature to do; poke his nose where it doesn’t belong and persistently and insufferably attempt to help. 

He shouldn’t have slapped him. It was base and unnecessary, and the fact he was overcome with embarrassment and anger does not sound as good of a justification as he thought it should. 

“You’re still not leaving.” Byakuya manages to say it clearly despite the cottony feel of his mouth and his stubborn prides insistence. He felt as though he has been shocked into a clearer state of mind. 

“I know…” Makoto sighs and in that moment his exhaustion reveals itself. It reminds Byakuya that it probably wasn’t just him affected by the mission. That of course Makoto, with all his infinite capacity to _care_ , would most likely be suffering too.

“I just apologised for it but…I’m still worried about you. I don’t want to abandon a friend when they’re hurting…Sorry. Again. ”

“I’m not injured.”

“H-huh?”

“Don’t stutter, it’s unseemly,” he rebukes, albeit a little weakly. It seems the emotional weakness he has suffered was now going to leech his physical strength as well. “…I was not injured; the doctors were correct. So, you have no reason for concern. I am utterly physically fine.”

“You’re not though; you’re half collapsed in a hallway shaking as hard as a leaf.”

“….I was… more _affected_ by our last mission than I thought. It was nothing, so stop worrying about it.” 

It is through gritted teeth that Byakuya manages to admit this, the only consolation being that it will make Makoto leave faster and stop bothering him. Then he can go back to his quarters and try to forget all about this moment of weakness

He’s wrong, of course. Makoto goes sharp eyed and more wary than before, and does not look at all satisfied or happy with his answer. 

“That’s not nothing, Byakuya. If it was nothing you wouldn’t be so upset. I won’t-“ Byakuya had gone to speak, to rebuke his accusations however accurate they were, but Makoto, Naegi Makoto the ultimate pushover, had put up a hand as though to silence _him_ and continued. “I won’t push you about it…But, if it keeps happening or if it _has_ been happening for a while already, you should…well you should probably talk to someone. I’m not saying it has to be me or anything! They have a great psyche department here, they’re all really nice, and well, you could always talk to one of the others too.”

Makoto must see Byakuya grimace because he laughs a little, that same self-deprecating laugh like he understands but is too self-conscious to voice it. He doesn’t stop though.

“But the point is, that you _should_ talk to someone. I found…that it helped me, when I was getting flash backs to our time in the…to when we were in hope’s peak, to talk to someone. It helped to share some of the load.”

He smiles at him then, small and sad and unfathomably warm.

Byakuya…he feels on one hand disgust at this attempt to sympathise and understand each other as equals. It was against everything his personal code stood for, aloofness and superiority above all else. 

But he is also tired. Physically, from the suppression of his earlier panic attack and emotionally…the toll from the flash backs, from the memories and dreams, were starting to wear on him. His pride, His stubborn unending pride that he carries like a shield, would normally never allow such thoughts but Makoto…Stupid, soft Makoto and the utter embarrassment of being seen like that had him considering alternate measures than repression.

“Ha, you are truly insufferable you know. They shouldn’t be calling you the ultimate hope, more like the ultimate busy-body.” He sighs long and low as Makoto makes an awkward little noise and rubs the back of his head shyly. 

“I suppose that’s an important part of the job, being nosy.” He smiles again, a little brighter it seems now that Byakuya is in a better mood. He starts the arduous job of attempting to pull himself upright again, re-adjusting his glasses on his face as he does. Makoto springs up a moment before him and offers his hand in the universal symbol of help.

Byakuya smacks it away, lightly and a little cautiously, and scowls up at him. “I am not a child Makoto, I do not need your help getting up. I have already had enough of your pity for one evening.”

“A-ah, sorry-”

“Although,” and Byakuya allows a little slyness to slip through his tone at this juncture, “I feel if you truly want to ‘help’, you should do as your station in life dictates and be subservient to me.”

“Uum, what--?”

“I desire a glass of fresh spring water Makoto. Go fetch it.”

The look of incredulous shock on Makoto’s face is refreshing, almost as refreshing as that water will be on his parched throat. Byakuya levels him with an appropriate glare and makes a questioning little, “hm?” before Makoto seems to find him serious and puts on a more…bashful expression.

“Sure thing, Byakuya. Do you want me to bring it to you here..?”

“No, you dullard. I would like it in my room. I expect it in 5 minutes, don’t make me wait.”

Laughing a little, Makoto sets off. 

Byakuya watches him until he turns the corner. Dark thoughts leer at him from the back of his mind, but they do not settle. 

Talking to Makoto, even as disastrously as it had gone, had in fact made Byakuya feel better. Those weighty considerations were a future problem now. 

The thoughts still sting, but perhaps in the way that the first touch of antiseptic to a wound stings. 

A painful but healing touch.


End file.
